Drat it all--TH:AUJ loses to Life of Pi for Art Directors Guild Awards!

Can't Post

Is the art direction for Life of Pi really that good? Is it better than AUJ? I haven't seen LOP yet so i can't judge! AUJ better take at least one Oscar this year or i'm gonna be severely disappointed!

It's awards season politics. While Life of Pi's Art Direction is nothing to sneeze at - in my opinion, it doesn't hold a candle to some of it's competition (Prometheus, Cloud Atlas, The Hobbit). But the simple fact is that Life of Pi is being positioned as the film to sweep the technical categories at the Oscars (though I think in this particular category at the Oscars, it will lose to Anna Karenina). Voters tend to go with the movies that have all the buzz, and Life of Pi is one of those films this year. "All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that it was vanity; But the dreamers of day are dangerous men. That they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible."- T.E. Lawrence

The group I saw it with was focused almost exclusively on the tiger, and why it looked so real, yet wolves never come out looking realistic. The rest of it was a bit too "arty," if you understand what I mean. Hard to describe, but like I was looking at something that was supposed to be "artistic."

In Reply To

I recently saw Life of Pi and while I thought it was a rather unusual and intriguing movie I feel there are others more deserving of recognition, including AUJ.

We had unprecedented awards recognition for Lord of the Rings, and I feel The Hobbit will generally be viewed as more of the same and so be passed over. Oscar nominations were few and far between for AUJ, and it may well come away empty handed. Also it's a trilogy of course, so we'll have to wait a couple of years for the final verdict.

Life of Pi was a really great film- beautiful cinematography, enchanting story, funny and thoughtful. Personally I enjoyed the film more than AUJ, and thought the special effects were superb. I think it will have a strong awards season. In Oscar terms, films often get more technical awards when they are nominated for best picture (like FotR). So we may well be in a similar situation later with Life of Pi pipping AUJ to the visual effects Oscar.

Great Art Direction/Sets/Costumes/CGI speak for themselves without needing an award to proclaim them as such. And besides, there's so much amazing work done in so many movies these days that singling one out for an award seems unfair to all the others (Prometheus, Cloud Atlas, Brave, Frankenweenie, Rise of the Guardians... And that's just the most prominent movies of 2012 in that regard, all as good as the Hobbit in terms of art and visuals (haven't seen Life of Pi yet, but I imagine it's pretty good too!)). There's so much that's beautiful and inspiring in today's Cinema, we live in a truly blessed age as far as motion pictures are concerned.

I went to see life of pi over the Xmas hols and enjoyed it a lot more than what I thought I would.my wife had read the novel as part of the village book club and she talked me in to going.it is a very arty film and like some have said it has been the movie with a buzz about it.if it gets the award I can't argue with that as i think the academy will probably ignore middle earth this time in a 'we've seen it before' type of way.it probably grated with a lot of them when LOTR was given such huge recognition 10 years ago,they won't want to give anymore without very good reason. Arrow....black arrow,I have saved you to the last.you have never failed me and always I have recovered you.I had you from my father and he from old.if ever you came from the forges of the true king under the mountain,go now and speed well

I loved the multi-layering, and exploration of themes of suffering, grief, loss, faith and resilience, and finding joy in unexpected places and ways. I loved the exploration of the idea of truth and what it really means, and what we do when reality is too much to bear. I loved the idea that there could be more than one layer of story/reality, and what if they are co-existing alongside each other somehow? It was stunningly beautiful in a most believable way, and for me this added another layer of richness to the experience. I thought about it for weeks afterwards, and I still think about it sometimes. There aren't many films that affect me in that way.

Life of Pi is the flavor of the month. It looked like a rather crappy movie from the trailers and intersted me little in making the effort to see it. From the trailers it reminded me of something you'd see at Disney Land during some kind of ride they might have.

Just curious as from the people i have spoken to who have seen both TH and Life of Pi, all think the CGI etc from Life of Pi was superior, myself included. It was truly beautiful without becoming cartoony like TH did in parts - thinking Goblintown especially.

The story itself is also much deeper than the one presented in TH - though obviously this is really only the first third of the story for TH where as Life of Pi had the luxury of being able to complete its tale in the one movie.

Like I said it looks awful (story wise) and so I have no interest in seeing It. The CGI looked alright in the trailers but it didn't look like anything special, and after five viewings of TH none of it looked like it could touch what I saw. Goblin Town as pretty darn impressive IMO. To each their own. If people enjoyed Pi that's cool. :)

Edit: I'm not trying to come across cranky if I am about Pi. It just never looked impressive to me in really any way is all. Standard CGI driven story is what I was getting at.

and bears some serious contemplation. I may see it again after some time has passed to discover nuances I missed the first time around.

People talk about the CGI in Pi and I always think of the animals, but for me some of the most beautiful scenes were not CGI at all (such as the ones I mentioned at the beginning of the film), and the others I found of particular note were the phosphorescence and ESPECIALLY the night sky reflected in the still water.

I'm glad I'm not in a position to judge films for awards, because comparing Pi with many of the other films out last year is like judging apples against oranges - both fruit, but that's where the common ground ends.

LOP is one of the best movies of 2012 IMO, personally I thought it was much superior to The Hobbit. It is anything but a CGI fest (CGI is great, but the movie has a lot more to offer); has a beautiful story, gret acting, and fantastic direction. I recommend you watch it, on the big screen if you can. Rivendell

It may be the total opposite for many of what I said. For me I saw all I need to see in the trailer. It looked like an average movie at best and having seen 37 movies in the theater last year it didn't even make my top films I would make an effort to see. I am glad people like it though as that's the reason we make the trek to the theatre.

It had some really beautiful scenes - but I went to see AUJ three times, so guess which is my favourite. Somehow I feel the art direction of the movies can't be compared - you've got a lot more action in The Hobbit, and LOP is a completely different film. Žęs ofereode, žisses swa męg - that has passed, so may this.